A video of a youth kissing seemingly unsuspecting women and then running away in Connaught Place was meant to get hits and earn money on social media, the man in the video, 20-year-old Sumit Kumar Singh, has told police. Sumit, who operated the YouTube channel, The Crazy Sumit, claimed before police that the women he kissed were aware of the video and had consented to be part of it.

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Sumit and another accused, 25-year-old Satyajeet Kadian — both pursuing Bachelor of Computer Application (BCA) — were picked up by police on Friday.

Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Ravindra Yadav said a raid was conducted and Sumit was picked up from his house in Gurgaon. “A laptop, video camera, wireless mikes and an award trophy, seemingly given by YouTube to The Crazy Sumit channel for surpassing 1,00,000 subscribers in October, were recovered from his house. Subsequently, his associate Kadian was detained from the same area,” said Yadav.

Taking suo motu cognizance, the Cyber Crime Cell of the Crime Branch had lodged a case under IPC Section 354 (molestation) after the video surfaced on social media earlier this week.

During questioning, Sumit told police that he had created the YouTube account about a year ago. He said three years ago, he was in an accident and was bedridden for two months. During that time, he used to watch prank videos on YouTube. That’s when he got the idea of earning money by making his own prank videos. Police said he has made 35-40 such videos so far.

“In December, he decided to make a video of him kissing unsuspecting women before running away. He said he contacted Kadian, who had earlier shot two prank videos for him. Sumit said they also asked some women to participate in the video and further claimed that all the women he kissed were aware of the ‘prank’,” police said.

The video was shot by Kadian, also a “prankster” who has an account under the name ‘DC Prank’. The video was uploaded on January 1. But once he started receiving backlash online, he deleted the video. By then, however, the video had already made its way to other websites.

Sumit then made another video, in which he apologised for his “prank”.

Kadian, meanwhile, told police that Sumit had made three “kissing videos” in December — one in Connaught Place and two in Gurgaon. But only the first one was published online.

Yadav said, “It is yet to be verified if the version of the two accused is true. Statements of the women will be taken to understand if they were aware or not.”